1941 Cole Porter's musical Let's Face It! opens tonight at the Imperial Theatre. It is the first chance that Danny Kaye has to prove himself as a leading man, because tonight is his first starring role on Broadway. His co-stars for the evening include Eve Arden, Vivian Vance and Nanette Fabray. Jose Ferrer takes over for Danny Kaye during the run of the show, which was 547 performances. The film version is released in 1943.

1958 Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer star in Leslie Stevens' The Marriage-Go-Round, which opens tonight at the Plymouth Theatre. The subject of the play is sex and marriage. Julie Newmar is also in the cast.

1967 Although without the famous nude scene that will be inserted into the Broadway run, Hair opens tonight at the Astor Library, the new home for Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. This is the first time the company have charged admission for one of their shows, although the ticket price is only $2.50. The show will transfer to Broadway in 1968, stopping off first at a discotheque on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The Broadway run will rack up 1,742 performances.

1984 The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego suffered its second arson fire in six years today. This one will cost the theatre $500,000.

--By Sam Maher and Steve Luber